Eco-terrorists burn millionaire dream homes in Washington

Three million-dollar dream homes in a Washington suburb were turned into ashes in a blaze apparently started by eco-terrorists.

The arsonists left a sign mocking the builders’ claims that the more-than 4,000sq ft houses were environmentally friendly.

The sign – a sheet marked with spray paint – bore the initials ELF, for Earth Liberation Front, a loose collection of radical environmentalists that has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks since the 1990s.

The sheriff’s office estimated that yesterday’s pre-dawn fires in Woodinville, outside Seattle, caused £3.7 m (€4.8m) damage to the “Street of Dreams”, a row of unoccupied, furnished luxury homes where last summer, tens of thousands of visitors eyed the latest in high-end housing, interior design and landscaping.

Three homes were destroyed and two had minor fire or smoke damage.

Crews removed incendiary devices found in the homes, Snohomish County District 7 Fire Chief Rick Eastman said. But Kelvin Crenshaw, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Seattle, said later there was no evidence such devices had been used.

The FBI was investigating the fires as a potential domestic terrorism act, said FBI spokesman Rich Kolko in Washington DC.

No injuries were reported in the fires.

The sign left behind said in red scraggly letters, “Built Green? Nope black!” and “McMansions in RCDs r not green”, a reference to rural cluster developments.

One alleged ELF activist is on trial in Tacoma in the 2001 firebombing of the University of Washington’s Centre for Urban Horticulture. Investigators had no evidence linking the fires to the trial, Seattle FBI agent Fred Gutt said.